Max Turns 2! (And progress updates)

It’s official. We have a two-year old!

And we are loving every minute of it (even those minutes where he reaches high above his head to pull out anything he can reach from whatever drawer he can reach!)

Max’s birthday was actually on Friday the 12th, but we saved our celebrating for Saturday. As it will likely be for the next 20+ years, we had multiple conflicts with company holiday parties, end-of-year work deadlines, etc., all sharing time on our calendar with our son’s birthday. My birthday is 3 days before his, so at least he has a mom who knows what it’s like to have a birthday that can easily get jumbled up with a bunch of holiday rush.

Despite calling out “no gifts” on the invitation, Max hauled in a great stack of goodies. And, he was just a total cutie-pie, taking his time to open each card and gift, and looking at each person as he said “dank ooo” (complete with his sign language hand-to-the-chin sign as well. I sense he will be combining the two well into college).

Enjoy some photos, and then scroll down for some medical updates and a shout-out to my Cinci girlfriends.

This is Max before all of the partying began, opening special gifts from my father and step-mother, who can't travel to Cincinnati as easily as we wish they could. We're excited to see them up in Michigan right after Christmas. Max LOVED this card, which played "Itsy Bitsy Spider" every time it opened.


Here is one of Max's BFF's, Ellie, who was happy to wear her party hat (Max wasn't nearly as eager) and devour the cookie-cutter shaped PB&J. (I stole that idea from Muriel, although hers were much more elaborate for her princess Sophia's b-day - I was happy my squares had crinkly edges!).



Max stood so politely on a chair as he opened all of his presents. (Surprisingly, I managed to tend to him just enough to keep him from nose-diving onto the floor!) I love this picture, and he was like this throughout the party -- so animated and so happy.


Big brother Tyler and big sister Jessica were of course there to celebrate with their little brother. Jessica managed to elude the camera, but Max loves to sit in Tyler's lap, and my heart goes pitter-patter when I see Tyler reading to him. Tyler had taken his ACTs that morning, so the fact that he was willing to read anything -- even Elmo -- was generous in of itself! Max is not camera shy, as evidenced by his boisterous "CHEESE" in this shot.


Hand in pocket. Very common.

My mom got this big giant elephant for Max (because he doesn't already have enough stuffed animals -- HA!). He loves this thing, and it's as big as he is. We generally let him fall asleep with it, with constant monitoring to ensure he isn't tangled in the thing! (I promise you we take it out of his crib once he's asleep). He's like our little ET -- he loves to fall asleep with a bunch of stuff on top of him. The other night, I crept in and started removing layers of stuffed animals from on top of his body, only to have him say, "Hi Mama" when I finally reached his face. I almost had a heart attack!


I love this picture -- Max was so happy to help his Papa string lights on the Christmas tree! And, he hasn't even pulled the tree over -- YET! We're taking bets on whether it will be the cat or the kid who yank it over.


My birthday was a few days before Max's, and Glenn bought me this cute little cake, and wrote "Happy Birthday Mama" in Russian on the cake (or close to it, any way). My husband is NOT Martha Stewart, and we rarely (ever?) have cakes for one another's birthdays. I love him for doing this for me, so that Max and he could sing "happy birthday" while I blew out my candles.


Just before his birthday, Max had a couple of scheduled evaluations at Children's Hospital. The first was his 6-month follow-up (WE WILL HAVE BEEN HOME 6 MONTHS ON XMAS DAY -- can you believe it?!). He tested "normal" in virtually every developmental milestone, which means he tested in at least the 20-month-old range for all areas. In "receptive speech", he even tested above his 24-month age range, because you can give him two and three part instructions and he can listen and follow all of the steps. A few days later, he had a routine hearing evaluation (as recommended by the Adoption Clinic), and not surprisingly, he tested normal in every area.

As far as his regular speech, it is really coming along, and his vocabulary and clarity improve every day. He's still testing in the "low" range, but we have every reason to believe that he will catch up. I am sharing this not to brag or take any credit at all (seriously, we do not do anything special with him -- we just read to him alot and talk as much as we normally would), but I do want to share these updates with others who I know are still on the Kaz adoption journey. This child did not speak, smile, or show any emotion beyond gutteral moans for the first few weeks that we knew him, and he didn't start making any meaningful sounds until we were home for a few weeks. The progress -- without any intense efforts by any means on our part -- is beyond amazing. The International Adoption Clinic doesn't even recommend that he come in again until three years from now, as they do want to follow his progress but they do not feel he needs any more of their specialized attention. Thank you, God, for all of our blessings.

So, just a few days after Max's birthday, we gave him the wonderful gift of a small medical procedure on his manly pieces/parts. All routine stuff, but he did have to be under general anesthesia for the procedure. He was first put under using a gas mask, and I got to hold him that entire time. They then whisked him away for what would be an IV of fluids and a epidural-like block. It was so difficult to see him wheeled away, but the procedure went like clock-work and we were reunited in less than 90 minutes. We were able to be in recovery with him before he woke up, so I was gently stroking his face and hugging him and kissing him to help him wake up. I fully expected to hear a cry and a "Mama" from my child when he woke up, sure that he would need me more than he ever needed me before. Instead, he woke up, and before his eyes were even open, he lifted his arm above his head, glanced towards the nurse, and said, "OFF." He didn't need me one bit -- he just needed the nurse to take the IV out and remove the board and bandages that held all the tubes in place. Other than taking some really tiny steps for the next two days and wincing a bit more than usual, this kid was back to being happy-go-lucky Max before we ever left the hospital parking lot.


And, I saved one of my favorite pictures for last -- not because we all look so fantastic (are my eyes closed?), but because of what it represents. This is the line-up of my Cincinnati girlfriends who came to Max's birthday party. Keep in mind that Max's party was on a Saturday afternoon on one of the prime Christmas shopping and Christmas party weekends of the year (I myself had a company holiday party the night before and another the night of Max's bday party!). Collectively, these are the women who moved me into my apartment when my first marriage broke up, gathered around one another as we sadly watched Hasbro and dozens of our friends move to Rhode Island (two of my girlfriends lost their jobs in that move -- I had already jumped ship), shared in many late nights and walks of shames that we try not to recollect now, giggled with me as I fell in love again, and hugged me as I struggled with learning how to integrate into Glenn's childrens' lives. All but one of them are single, and they've known me primarily as "single, fun Karen", the person who organizes the trips to the Reds games, the canoe trips, the weekends in New York City, the other road trips, and the happy hours. They've watched me calm down as I settled into my new role as Glenn's partner. They gathered round at a UC football tail gate party, as we announced that we were adopting a child -- and none of them said (out loud anyway!) that we were nuts. And, they decorated our house, inside and out, when we came home with our child (two of them picked us up at the airport!). I did not know how my relationship would change with these women -- women who have watched me go from "fun Karen" to "exhausted new mom who is often really cranky and now has so little time for her friends Karen." And then, Max turned 2, and every single one of them was there, gathered around his cake, singing "Happy Birthday" at the top of their lungs while wearing Elmo party hats. I cried while we sang, not only because I have an amazing husband and an amazing 2-year-old, but because I have this amazing group of girlfriends who have embraced my husband, my child, and me more than ever. I know I can and will make a stronger effort to grow additional relationships with our married friends, and friends who have children who are closer in age to Max. In the meantime, Max is surrounded by these women, all of whom are his favorite aunts ever. As the Girl Scouts taught us, "Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver, and the other is gold."

These are my golden girlfriends.



Merry Christmas, with love.

Karen.

Haven't fallen off the face of the earth...

....But suffice to say that we might be hanging on to the edge of the earth by our fingernails! Actually, things are absolutely fantastic. Just slightly too busy. As much as I want to take the time to pen something really witty, I think I'll just post some photos and provide a few updates via captions.

"Cousins" Zoe and Austin stopped by to hang with Max on a nice early afternoon Fall Sunday. Max really looks up to his cousins, and we wish they lived closer than the 2.5 hours that separates us.

Here's our little puppy enjoying his first Halloween. He didn't get it at all. He thought I was torturing him when I put the make-up on his face (which I never did really finish). We went to a few houses, but he insisted on giving the candy back to whomever handed it to him. He spent most of the evening sitting in my mom's lap, handing out candy to all of the other children who stopped by. He did take a few bites of a mini candy bar, but he still isn't a big fan of sweets.
As I mentioned in a previous post, we took a vacation to the Bahamas in early November. My quick summary: "Vacation" and "Two-Year-Old" are mutually exclusive ideas. :-) I could write so, so, so much about this vacation -- about how the Internet didn't work, crushing my plans for catching up on blogs during Max's nap times and every evening; about how we dealt with the outskirts of Hurricane Paloma as it whipped through Cuba; about how I lost my wallet with multiple credit cards, ATM card, Drivers License, and cash inside, limiting our ability to access cash and causing me identity theft strife; about how Max started whispering "Mama" at about 6:15 AM each day, escalating to a screeching MAAAAAAMAAAAAA if I didn't look his way within two minutes; or about how the resort we were traveling to abruptly closed the day before we arrived, and how we were moved to a sister resort but without the "kid friendly" accommodations that were provided at the booked resort. But, rather than write about all of that, I'll confirm that we did successfully acquire additional certified copies of our marriage certificate while on the island (for use during our next adoption), and I'll just skip to the pics of our adorable vacation buddy.

Max's travel outfit. We left the house at 5 AM for a 6:30 AM flight.

We traveled on Election Day, having voted by absentee ballot prior to vacation. This is a picture of my two boys at the moment that CNN declared Obama the winner in the presidential election. They both tried so hard to stay awake for the historical moment, but that 4:00 AM wake up time that morning caught up with them both. (Glenn might have sipped a few vacation cocktails, too. HA!)

We went out to dinner every night, and Max was just amazing at each restaurant. Before we left home, I picked up a couple of cars and trucks in the $1 bins at Target, and between those and sugar packets, he managed to entertain himself each night while we actually enjoyed our dinner.

Max didn't like the beach ... at all. I coerced him into going to the beach on two days, because I had visions that he would dig in the sand while I relaxed next to him on a lounge chair. Yeah, right. He really hated the sand, and he loved the pool. Once he figured out that we had to walk past the pools in order to get to the beach, he flatly refused to walk beyond the pools. So, I spent alot of time in freezing cold pools in crappy weather, but our little guy was kicking and putting his face in the water by the end of the trip. I am excited to get him into swimming lessons after the holidays -- but do I HAVE to wear a bathing suit when I'm in the water with him?! :-)

We enjoyed our morning drinks (milk for him, Diet Cokes for Glenn and me) on the balcony every morning. I never did get over the fear that Max would somehow escape our balcony, but our room was so small that we needed to extend our space to the outdoors (plus, it was a beautiful view, even on bad weather days).

I can't remember if this was chips for breakfast or chips for dinner, but hey, "it's vacation", so who really cares? :-)

Just hanging out on the grounds one evening.

I love this picture, because his expression is in keeping with his "enough photographs, Mom!" 'tude at this point in the vacation.

Five days after we got home from vacation, we hosted our first party post-Max. Sixteen of our closest friends and six of their children came over for a "make your own Mexican" feast, washed back with yummy Margaritas and Sangria. If I wasn't already certain, this party confirmed for me once and for all that doing anything with a toddler now takes twice as long for half the results. :-) We even hired a babysitter to help with Max, but he wanted nothing to do with her -- and he wouldn't even go to Glenn. The first 90 minutes of the party is a blur of trying to welcome everyone, get the food ready and served, introduce people to one another, organize kids' activities, etc., etc., etc., all with Max glued to my side. I finally asked Chloe, the 6-year-old daughter of friends Donna and Pat, if she would mind if Max followed her and Charleigh (Jules' six-year-old) around the party. Chloe is quite possibly the coolest kid I've ever met, and by the end of the night, she'd taught him a few tricks and dance moves, she was wiping his nose, and he was back to our happy-go-lucky Max that we've come to know. This picture was taken well past Max's bed time, and they were both still smiling and giggling and entertaining the rest of us.

My best friend from college, Cindi, was in town for the weekend, to visit Max, and to go to the Bengals game. The Bengals were playing the Eagles, and Cindi is a die-hard Eagles fan who doesn't get a chance to see them play in person very often, given that she lives in San Diego! We had a "girls day" at the game on Sunday. We wrapped in blankets and talked our way through the game, which ended in a tie -- the first NFL tie in a gazillion years. Only the Bengals .... :-) I snapped very few pictures that weekend, in part because Cindi was the "official" photographer. I'll post the picture below of us headed to the game -- one of my only pictures from the weekend -- and Cindi will be so mad at me for posting a picture of her with her eyes closed.


Two days later, I was off to Mexico City on a business trip. I have to post the picture of my hotel room, the W in Mexico City. Check out that hammock in the bathroom/walk-in shower area. Too bad I was too busy to enjoy it (and sick with a bad cold and strep throat while I was there), but what a beautiful room. That big window had a view out over the city.

Max's big brother Tyler turned 18 years old on November 23rd. As I've posted before, we've had some rocky times with Glenn's children. I was weepy watching Tyler happily hold onto Max as he blew out his birthday candles. Max has brought us so much joy, and he has glued our family more closely together.

We hosted Thanksgiving at our house for my small but mighty family. My brother went to his partner's family's celebration, so we hosted my Mom, and my Aunt Sharon (a professor at the University of Michigan) and my Uncle Dave from Ann Arbor. They brought with them Mahat, a visiting professor from Egypt who will be working side by side with my Aunt for the next few months. I cooked a ton of food, again taking twice as long with a toddler connected to my ankles. :-) Everyone spent the night, and I'm not sure I did the US justice with my hostess duties towards Mahat. Hopefully she won't think that every US household is as chaotic and informal as our home was for her two-day visit!

We attended our first official holiday event when we went to the "Christmas Tree Lighting" in downtown Cincinnati on Friday night of Thanksgiving weekend. It was actually somewhat lame, although Nick Lachey was the "surprise" St. Nick, and that seemed to please all of the 13-year-old girls in the crowd. (Who am I kidding?! He is a good looking dude!) I have a hunch that we may overdo the holiday events a bit this year, and then in coming years we'll settle into the things that we truly want to make a tradition. I've been dreaming about sharing these things with a child for so long that I just have to try everything this year!

And then, today, I tried to get some "Christmas" pictures of Max, on what may be the last decent weather day we have for awhile. I am more in awe than ever of the beautiful photos that my blogger friends post on their blogs, and that my long-time friends post on their holiday cards. I am not kidding when I say that I took 30+pictures, without a single one that I would call out as the "perfect" Christmas card picture. Maybe I'll try again later (or not -- hee hee). Here are the two that came close to passing my inspection, and the third captures what Max was doing for most of the photo session -- running to and from me without ever standing still!


We have so much to be thankful for this year, and we continue to feel so blessed as we go into this holiday season. We are keeping all of our friends and families in our thoughts and prayers, sending out extra love to those who are impacted by our wars and our economic situation. Thank you for continuing to follow our story.

Fall Fun!

What would we do without our blogger friends? It was such a blast to take a break from work last Friday so that we could get together with Kentucky Karen, her adorable son Nick, and Karen's parents. And, the extremely famous Chicago Kaz mom Muriel was in Cincinnati visiting family, so she joined us with Kaz beauty Sophia, and newborn son Jack. Muriel's great friend Gina and her stunning daughter Teagan (the most amazing curls you've ever seen!) also joined in for the fun. Once again, my brilliant mother skills were in full mode as we got turned around not once but twice on the way to the park, only to arrive and find out that many of the "festivities" closed at 2:00 PM (as we arrived at 1:50PM). Some day, I swear I am going to be an organized Mama! (And, more in a minute about the practically abandoned mall that I dragged everyone to after the park, just certain that there was an indoor play area ... not). I adore Muriel, Karen, and Gina, as they just rolled with the flow and the kids still had plenty of fun.

As you'll see from the pics below, we did manage to get the kids on the pony ride. Thanks, Muriel, for rushing the ticket booth. :-) The park had a huge play set, and Max joined the older kids and climbed almost all of the way to the top over and over again. He would then slide down a spiral slide all by himself. He is so brave -- even on the pony -- as I don't think he has yet figured out that some of these things should scare the X&%# out of him! HA!



The kids also had alot of fun looking at the animals -- a huge sheep, an even bigger pig, a couple of goats, a donkey, lots of ponies, and a few other odds and ends. It was cool to see Max point to a real live sheep and say "baaaaaa." It's good to know that he gets that there are actual real farm animals -- not just puzzle pieces or 2-D renderings in a book!






The kids let us know "we're hungry" (although it was slightly more non-verbal), so we headed to the above-mentioned nearly-abandoned-but-very-close-by mall. For some reason, I thought it had an indoor play area with a huge carousel. Instead, it had the teeny tiniest little merry-go-round ever made. We fed the kids, rounded up our quarters, and headed to the merry-go-round. It kept everyone sufficiently entertained. and eventually lulled Max into his no-nap-fog. He was happy to sit in his stroller for the last few rounds of quarters.



Max is really babbling up a storm now, and seemingly streaming words together to form thoughts and sentences, but it's all still pretty garbled. We're just starting to approach a stage where frustration sets in with him because we can't understand what he is saying. He generally resorts to taking us by the hand, or getting behind one of us and pushing us along, to get us near to whatever it is that he is trying to talk about or tell us. It's so dang cute, although we hope that his words come soon enough before intensified melt-downs commence.

We also took the leap, and we sent in our check to begin the home study update process. And, we obtained the new contract from our placement agency. We will slowly but surely start working our way through the process with the hope of adopting a little brother for Max. We still diligently follow all of the "new" stories, and we know it will be challenging. But, we love Kazakhstan, and we hope very much to humbly return and adopt from there again.

In the meantime, we are loving every single minute with Max. We are enjoying our first "season change" with him (turtlenecks and sweatshirts -- love it!), and of course preparing for our first Halloween. We are also all headed on a vacation in early November to the Bahamas -- Max even has his own US passport with the cutest little picture. A Caribbean vacation with a toddler -- somehow I think this might be slightly different than our previous treks to tikki-bar locales.

Happy Fall, everyone!

Making Strides Against Breast Cancer

October -- Breast Cancer Awareness Month -- will always be a special month for us, as breast cancer awareness and continuous research into the cause is extremely important and valued in our family, given that my mother and I are both BC survivors. I am so humbled by the fact that my friend Mindy gathers up our closest girlfriends and encourages us to walk together in the annual Making Strides Against Breast Cancer 5-mile walk. This year, we added Max and his BFF Ellie, in their strollers, to the Pink Floyd team. (I have so many aliases out in the yahoo world, but in reality, my last name is Floyd – which is not Glenn’s last name or Max’s last name, as if anyone cares. LOL.)

This year, I also challenged my Cincinnati work colleagues to wear pink on the Thursday before the walk, ensuring them all that I would make a donation in their honor to the American Cancer Society, for each person swathed in pink. More than 2/3 of my colleagues showed up in pink that day. As you’ll see below, I gathered up 50 of them for a photo at the end of the day – and there were many others in full pink regalia who were unable to be in the photo.


And, as an additional tribute to the Pink Floyd team, I dressed Max in pink for the Making Strides walk. This is probably the one and only year that I can get away with that, as he hasn’t yet figured out that he was in girls’ clothing. Given that he already has a stroller with pink trim (that I swear was labeled “red” on the Internet ordering form), his clothing and the pink balloon tied to his stroller blended in nicely. We did our best to keep Max and Ellie entertained for 5 miles, but as my aching back can attest, we did have to take turns carrying each of them a few times when the stroller surrounded by thousands of people just became too overwhelming for the youngest members of our team.


Sunday was the most gorgeous October day, and we strided along with 10,000 other people, raising more than $800,000. We finished the morning with a girlfriends’ breakfast, during which Mindy taught Max how to balance a spoon on his nose.



Seriously, could there be a better morning?

Ben Franklin, My Hero

We’re back. Thank you so much for all of the supportive (and funny) comments. I never thought we'd share something else in common -- hurricanes -- with Matt and Suz and Joe and Susan and Sandi and our other Florida friends! Our electricity came back on Thursday night at 9 PM, so we were without power for 4 ½ days. We watched the utility men repair the “blown fuse” at the end of our street --- it took 10 minutes to repair. So, when we share our power outage story (as everyone in this city is doing this week), our story is “four and a half days plus 10 minutes.” We have so much compassion for the families and businesses in the Houston and Galveston area. I hugged my refrigerator for an hour (okay, maybe a minute) after the power came back on (as did Max, since he mimics EVERYTHING I do) – I cannot imagine the challenges for our friends down south who are STILL without power. They are all in our thoughts.

So, back to our lives …. If you’re an avid blog stalker, you’ve already read about two of our highlights at the end of this summer – meeting two families who we came to know through this amazing blogging sub-culture. Of the three Karens – Kentucky Karen, Minnesota Karen, and Ohio Karen – I am the blog slacker, so while they both were great about posting stories about our get-togethers immediately thereafter, here I sit FINALLY telling my side to the story! ☺

Kentucky Karen and I have been trying to get together for months, even having something on our calendars last winter (which was to include the also famous Muriel and her beloved Sophie). Mother Nature intervened with those plans, dumping a blizzard’s worth of snow on Cincinnati that weekend. We didn’t give up (or should I say, Karen didn’t give up on ME!), and Karen and Nick headed our way in the week following Labor Day. Karen and husband Pat have been such an inspiration for not only Glenn and me, but for many other families who have any connection to Kazakhstan or toddler adoption. Her blog entries are a perfect combination of honesty and humor – just enough honesty to help us all keep our eyes wide open, but just enough humor to keep us all from giving up. I felt like I already knew Nick, but of course, he is a gazillion times more impressive and cute and FUNNY in person than could ever be represented in print. It is so much fun to talk to him, and he communicates with so much imagination and flair. Of course, at that age, you can also pick up nuggets of insight that you can be relatively certain were planted by parents. For example, as we were driving, Nick announced, “I not scream – it hard to drive when I scream.” Gee, I wonder who told him that?! ☺

Max was enamored with Nick. He literally could not take his eyes off of him. So, in most of our pics, Nick is looking at least somewhat towards the camera, and Max is looking at Nick. Karen posted a couple of photos on her site, but I don’t think she caught any pictures while they played the piano together. (If I recall, that is when she was completing the monstrous job of moving Nick’s car seat to my car – something I am so thankful she was willing to do, as our car time turned out to be great conversation time).

I think Nick was telling me, "You have two more chances to get a picture of both of us looking at you." It didn't matter if I had 100 chances -- I never did get a perfect shot!

I wish they were looking at the camera, but aren't they adorable just the same?

What Karen was so generous NOT to mention on her blog is that I pulled one of my many “not going to be mother of the year” moments when she was in town. I made these big plans for all of us to go to a park with a bunch of water features for a picnic lunch and play (after visiting Jungle Jim’s, Cincinnati’s famous international grocery store – yummy!). It never occurred to me – given that I am only now getting into “mother mode” – that these types of water park places close after Labor Day. Ooops! I am not kidding when I say that we drove half-way around Cincinnati to get to the park, only to find it closed for the season. Being the brilliant mother that she is, Karen just whispered to me, “Don’t mention water”, and we got out of the car, ate our picnic lunches under a tree near a playground set, and pretended we were never going to a water park (despite having talked about it A LOT with the kids prior to arriving). Nick did catch on, but Karen in her brilliance re-directed his attention to the playground equipment and we carried on with our day. I was so embarrassed, but was simultaneously further reminded why Karen and I clicked from the beginning. She’s amazing, insightful, forgiving, and downright fun, and it’s no wonder that Nick is the coolest kid. (We can’t wait to meet Pat during our next get-together).

Having had such a wonderful time hanging with a blogger friend whom I'd never met before, I decided to post a comment on Minnesota Karen’s blog a few days later. Max and I were about to travel to Minnesota for the memorial service for my Aunt Barb, who passed away in late July. (My aunt had been a teacher in the same district since the early 80s, so her friends and our family purposely delayed her service until the school year began, giving more people the chance to share their memories. I’ll blog separately about that beautiful service soon). I knew that Max and I would have a free evening in the Minneapolis area, so I suggested in my comment on Karen’s blog that perhaps we could all get together.

And, of course, Minnesota Karen, wife to fabulous Bob and Mom to the gorgeous Garrett, wrote back to me immediately. She generously offered to meet us at our hotel, and the plans were solidified.

I fell in love with Garrett the second he came running into the hotel lobby. Karen has posted before about how she thinks Garrett is cuter in person than in pics, which I found impossible to believe, as he is adorable in photos! Well, I now have first-hand knowledge that he is stunning. He has the most amazing eyes and an infectious smile and the most beautiful skin. He is going to have the girls flocking all over him. (I already have a crush on him – HA!) As was the case with Nick, it’s almost too hard to believe how quickly Garrett has learned to communicate in English. These kids are mini-miracles, every one of them. We headed off to Chili’s, where our usually flexible child became Melt-Down Max. We keep Max on a pretty tight nap schedule, but we’d flown in that day, and other than a quick nap in the car on the way to the hotel from the airport, he was nap-less. And, it showed.

I am convinced that if your child is having a melt-down, you can be in no better company than another Kazak adoptive family. I think we have all developed an extra layer of empathy and compassion that otherwise may not exist. Bob (who will here-to-fore be known as Bob-The-Great) helped keep an eye on Max, who was only happy being either half-way under the table, tangled within the wood-slat window blinds, or affixed to Bob’s side with a hand on his leg. Bob seemed to have the better angle for viewing some of this, and it gave Karen and me slightly more opportunity for eye contact across the table while sharing stories. And what was Garrett doing? Eating, playing, talking, and otherwise being the best behaved child on the planet. I still smile as I type this – despite the Max chaos, it was such a fantastic evening out. Our trip to Minnesota was so bittersweet, as we continue to mourn my Aunt’s unexpected death, and I am so thankful that our trip included our time with the KaBobs.

Happy Garrett.

Happy Garrett scooting as far away as possible from the screaming, crying Max. I think I saw a few other patrons doing just the same. HA!

I am certain that Bob and Glenn would get along famously, and I want the KaBobs to move to Cincinnati tomorrow. ☺



As a new season is upon us, we, too, have entered into the next chapter of our journey. I’m back at work full-time, and we’re all settling in to the routine that is likely to be our “normal” for awhile (which is much easier to do with electricity). Like millions of working moms before me, I have daily struggles with the balance. I’ve been a work-a-holic for over 20 years, and it is just plain weird to come to terms with the fact that I can’t “finish that up tonight” or “work all day Sunday”, as I’ve been able to do for my entire career. Of course, there’s no greater joy than walking through the door to hugs, kisses, and “MaMa!” (which is actually more like “PaMa”), but to be honest I am still feeling discombobulated as I readjust to my new routine.

And then, there is our sweet, adorable, now 21-month-old Max, who….

• Has started to give us the biggest tightest hugs, just because…I sometimes come close to crying, as these are just the sweetest moments ever.
• Loves to sit and read books together. This is new – he liked to turn pages before, but now he really seems to get into the story.
• Loves school – he is truly happy to arrive, and not all that happy to leave (they definitely have more toys than we do -- HA!)
• Will sleep until 9:30 on the weekends (don’t hate me), especially if he has been up a bit late the evening before.
• Says a new word almost every day, and even speaks now when he signs (vs. ONLY signing in the beginning – which worried me enough that I quit teaching him new signs).
• Loves to kick a soccer ball around the house. The cat sometimes plays along.
• Favors his left-hand for eating, throwing, etc.
• Knows more toddler songs than I do, because they sing a lot at school. I hadn’t gotten around to adding “Wheels on the Bus” yet to my budding repertoire, but I put a CD in the other day that included that song, and he knew every single hand motion. Great news -- he’s already smarter than I am.
• Is a very unpredictable eater. There are three things he’ll never turn down – milk infused with Carnation Instant Breakfast (at every meal, as encouraged by the pediatrician, since it's spiked with nutrients), mashed potatoes, and oatmeal. Otherwise, one never knows. He’ll eat three big meals one day, and the next day he’ll lose all interest in food (other than his milk) from breakfast onward. We try not to let him survive on mashed potatoes alone, but some days it’s tempting. ☺
• Will still ride in his jogging stroller forever, humming along to the IPod tunes (we carry a speaker), pointing out nature, and waving to all who we pass. Just this week, I met up with my NCSU/Raleigh friend Dawn, who was in Columbus on business – we met halfway between Cinci and Columbus, at an abandoned outlet mall, and we walked and walked and walked for almost three hours around and around this parking area, giving us a chance to catch up and nab some exercise at the same time. He chatted along with us, pointed out airplanes (and eventually stars), drank from his sippy cup, played with his shoes and socks, and was the trooper that he typically is, for all that time, without ever so much as one unhappy moment. (I think he was also riding high because Dawn brought him the cutest little NCSU t-shirt, and he already loves the Wolfpack like his Mama).
• Is the absolute joy of our lives.

P.S. Regarding the title to this post ... I know that Ben Franklin didn't necessarily "invent" electricity, but in my little world, he did enough to ensure that I'd have power last week, so I'm giving him the credit just the same. ☺